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THE 



CAUSES AND' REMEDIES 



OP 



^IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES, 



gin glMi[ess 



SAMUEL R. WILSON, 

PASTOa OP THE FIEST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CINCINNATI 



" The curse causeless shall aot come." 

Peoveebs. 




CINCINNATI, OHIO: 

PUBLISHED BY J. B. ELLIOTT, 51 FOURTH STREET, 

1860. 



4, 




THE 



CAUSES AND REMEDIES 



OF 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES, 



^n ^M\[m 



BY 



SAMUEL R. WILSON, 

PASTOR OF THE FIEST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CINCINNATI. 



" The curse causeless shall not come." 

Peoverbs. 



CINCINNATI, OHIO: 
PUBLISHED BY J. B. ELLIOTT, 51 FOURTH STREET. 

1860. 






DEDICATION. 



The following Address, which was delivered in the regular course 
of the author's ministrations, on Sabbath, November 18th, and is 
given to the public in its present form at the request of a friend 
who has kindly provided the means for its publication, is now 
respectfully dedicated to the sons of those whose Pioneer hands 
founded these Central States, the borders of which are washed by 
the waters of the Ohio, and upon whom rests, in great measure, 
the ultimate decision of the question whether the Republic shall be 
preserved it its original integrity, or perish in the strife of contend- 
ing factions. 

S. R. W. 

Elm Street, Nov. 20, 1860. 






CAUSES AND REMEDY 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. 



It should seem that we are upon the eve of Civil War. Already 
is the atmosphere murky with those clouds which hang like a funereal 
pall over the burning volcano. Already do we feel those strange 
vibrations which admonish that the pent-up fires are struggling to 
break over their accustomed barriers, and pour their lava tide over 
field, and city, and hamlet. The most thoughtless have ceased to 
laugh at the threatening calamity ; the wisest and the bravest feel 
their hearts beat slower as they look around for some means to avert 
the danger, or prepare bravely to meet it. In the North there is 
denunciation ; in the South there is menace. Everywhere the 
mingled sound of hesitation, preparation, action. The sea and the 
waves roaring, men's hearts failing, because of those things which 
seem to be coming upon the land. 

The immediate occasion and ostensible pretext for these revolu- 
tionary movements is the election, by a portion of the states of the 
Confederacy, and, perhaps, a minority of the people, of a Chief 
Magistrate who is the representative of that party which claims to 
be the peculiar antagonist of slavery, the friend of universal freedom 
and of the slave. This consummation has been styled by one cler- 
ical leader of the party, itself a Political Revolution ; and by another 
it has been announced, with exultation, as the first time the slave 
has chosen a President. It may be that both of these declarations 
are true, or both may be false. But, whether true or false, they 
indicate the animus of the party dominant at this moment, and whose 
momentary success has become the pretext for those movements 
which are to issue in a cutting asunder of our national bands, and 
plunging us into fratricidal strife. 

In such a juncture of affairs it becomes the duty of every citizen 
to study the things that make for peace, and of every Christian to 

m 



4 CAUSES AND REMEDY OF 

entreat the God of the Covenant, in prayers, and supplications, and 
intercessions, on behalf of all that are in authority, that they may 
be restrained and guided so that the people may receive no damage, 
and the Church be left in quietness to pursue her work of love. It 
also becomes the ministers of Christ, embassadors of God, in such a 
time, to inquire after, and point out the moral causes of our national 
calamities, and to suggest the appropriate remedy ; if, peradventure, 
by timely and sincere repentance, the anger of God may be averted 
from us, and our tranquillity lengthened out. 

That there is such a call upon every one, to the prompt discharge 
of their several duties, at this time, can not, surely, be doubted. 
Telegraphic dispatches may be erroneous or false at times ; specu- 
lators may exaggerate the excitement, and demagogues may bluster; 
and due allowance must be made for all these elements in estimating 
the true state of affairs. But when every requisite abatement has 
been made, the sober and sad conviction of every friend of his coun- 
try and race must be, that there is a settled purpose on the part of 
a powerful faction, both in the South and in the North, to trample 
down the Constitution, to break up the national Covenant, and in so 
doing to brave all the inevitable horrors of civil and servile war. 
And even if in this judgment one should be really in error, over- 
solicitude for the security and peace of our firesides and altars dis- 
turbing the mental vision, and so creating unnecessary alarm, in view 
of imaginary rather than real dangers, still, better far the false alarm 
of the faithful sentinel, than the soothing flattery of the traitor, or 
the stupid indifference of the sluggard. 

I am not by natural constitution very well fitted to be the agent 
of a Non-resistance Society. Grace does not teach me the duty of 
passive obedience to the illegal and unauthorized demands of my 
fellow-man. If persecuted for righteousness' sake, I should rejoice, 
take it patiently, and commit my cause to him who has said, "Venge- 
ance is mine ; I will repay." If assailed in my civil rights, I should 
" appeal unto Ccesar," as a free-born citizen of a free Commonwealth. 
If attacked by a ruffian, I should repel force by force, and in the 
alternative of killing or being killed, should let instinct have its way. 
But even if it were so that a man ought not merely on his own 
account to resist wrong, and repel force by force, yet the obligations 
of society often rise above merely private or personal considerations. 
And the case may occur, and often has occurred, in which it is as 
plain a duty for a Christian to stand, rifle in hand, between his family 
and infuriate men, as if, instead of men, they had been less savage 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. 6 

bears and wolves. The maxim of the Christian is, "As much as in 
you lies, live peaceably with all men." But he who says to himself 
and others, "Peace, peace," Avhen there is no peace, becomes the 
miserable victim of his own delusion, and probably involves others, 
more innocent than himself, in a common ruin. 

I have not studied the Bible or human history to so little pur- 
pose, as to have adopted the absurd dogma of sentimental phil- 
anthropy, that war is the direst of evils. On the contrary, I am 
firmly of opinion, that there are gigantic evils, compared with 
which, war is as nothing, and for which the only practical remedy 
has been, and in this present evil world will continue to be, war, 
bloody, desolating, and, perhaps, exterminating; yes, even civil 
war, fratricidal, hateful, hellish. Better the horrors of the French 
Revolution, than the perpetual incubus of royal debauchery and 
tyranny, smothering the life of the people under its hideous weight. 
Better the fields of Austerlitz, of Jena, and of Marengo, than the 
Bastile and the Inquisition. Better Rome in flames, than the Ro- 
man people chained to the car of a ISTero. But if it be true, as 
all history attests, that war is not the Avorst of calamities, nay, that 
war itself may become the only practicable remedy for more per- 
manent and less bearable evils, it is also equally true, that it should 
be accepted only as a remedy, and as that of last resort. It is 
the easiest thing in the world to kindle the flames of war, and it is 
certainly the silliest and wickedest, except for the most substantial 
reasons. The pomp and circumstance of war, as it appears in holi- 
day dress, with sash, and epaulette, and gaudy plume, moving grace- 
fully to sound of fife and drum, over the soft green sward, its banners 
and bayonets flashing in the genial sunlight, is indeed a grand thing 
to behold. How it dazzles the eyes and stirs the heart of youth 
and beauty. With what zest, too, do we sit at home, surrounded by 
all the comforts and luxuries of refined and peaceful life, and pore 
over the blood-stained pages of history. How magnificent Achilles 
and Hector, and the Avarlike sons of Atrides look, as their heroic 
deeds are painted by the blind old bard of Greece. How stirring 
the story of great Cnesar's wars in Gaul. With what breathless at- 
tention do we listen to the thrice-told tale of Napoleon and his 
marshals ; of Washington and his patriot generals ; of Wellington 
and his grenadiers ; or Jackson and his pioneer riflemen. How the 
hot blood of manhood, yes, and the warmer but gentler blood of 
maidenhood, courses SAvifter and swifter through the veins, ns, with 
glowing pen, the historian recounts the gallant ch;irgc, the Avell-sus- 



6 CAUSES AND KEMEDY OF 

taincd shock, the quick repulse, tlic victory, the flight. Flaxen- 
haired boyhood alread}' emulates in mimic war the deadly strife, 
and longs to be a soldier, while even soberer age grows restless at 
■what seems inglorious peace. Indeed, the tented field of hostile 
hosts looks wondrous fine from a parlor window, and the curtain 
which the historic muse lets fall over the gory stage on which grim- 
visagcd war plays out his tragedies, is most gorgeously pictured. 
But lift that curtain, and how changed the scene. Become a spec- 
tator of the tragedy, and how soon the illusion vanishes. Leave 
your easy seat upon the divan, lay aside your velvet slippers and 
silken gown, and buckle on the knapsack and sword, and take your 
stand among the actors. Place yourself in the midst of the dead, 
the dying, the mangled human forms worse-doomed still to live. 
Stand with those grand marshals and that grand Napoleon, amid 
the scorching air and crumbling walls of deserted Moscow. Follow 
with the wolves and Cossacks the flying invaders across the track- 
less snow. Ride with the "Iron Duke" over the field of Waterloo, 
strewn with its myriads of shrieking and groaning wretches, crying 
out for " Water, water !" Go watch during the long, long winter 
nights with the shivering, barefoot sentinel, at the camp of Valley 
Forge ; or, with unrelenting heart and murderous hand, join in the 
hideous feud of Whig and Tory. Become a party in the burning 
of hamlets and the sacking of cities. Unsheathe the sword, that 
wives may become widows, mothers be made childless, and children 
orphans. And then you will know what war is — real war; not such 
as is painted upon canvas, or in soft rhetoric strains depicted upon 
the historic or epic page ; but gaunt, grim, reeking war, such as it 
is to the soldier on the battle-field ; such as those shall find it who 
now invoke its aid, no matter for what cause. 

And yet, it may become necessary at times to invoke this dread 
instrument as that which alone can redress intolerable wrongs, and. 
bring certain relief to oppressed humanity. Has our countrv in-' 
deed fallen upon such a time ? Arc the wrongs under which we 
groan so intolerable, as that there is left us no other means of re- 
dress ]jut this of the sword ? Must it needs be, that the brotherhood 
of white men should be torn asunder in the bitter strife of freemen 
over the prostrate body of negro bondmen ? It is but yesterday, 
as it were, that the best blood of the South was freely poured out 
at the Raisin, at Tippecanoe, at the Fallen Timber, and at New Or- 
leans, to secure our firesides from the tomahawk and scalping-knife. 
These fertile fields, whose wealth has built your city ; this beautiful 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. 7 

river, which bears upon its bosom your merchandise to the great 
Father of Waters ; the free use of that great stream itself, are all 
the purchase of the blood and toil of those brave men whose slaves 
kept watch for them at home, while they drove from the soil the 
" Red Sticks " and " Red Coats." And can it be, that so soon we 
have learned to forget to whom we owe the possession of this fair 
land? Shall the sons of sires who fought shoulder to shoulder in 
'76, in '98, in 1812, boast so soon that they have no need of one 
another, and to prove it to the world, turn their plowshares into 
swords, with which to destroy each other ? Shall the strangers who 
have come in to sojourn among us, and who have been welcomed to 
a share in our rich inheritance, be enlisted in this internecine war? 
Is it true, that an " irrepressible conflict " has begun, not between 
Slavery and Freedom, not between the oppressed and their oppressors ? 
No, no, no — not such a conflict at all — but between " Cotton Gins " 
and " Cotton Jennies ;" between Boston and Charleston ; between 
office seekers and office holders ; between pretended philanthropy in 
the North and ofi"ended pride in the South ; between slaveholders 
in the South and the men in the North and West Avho have grown 
rich upon the products of slave toil. Is it true that an " irrepressible 
conflict " between these parties has indeed begun, which is to carry 
fire and sword through this fair land, and not cease until one or the 
other has been crushed and conquered ? We are told by distinguished 
statesmen that this is the issue before us. A portion of the South- 
ern States of the Confederacy declare that they are about to with- 
draw from the Republic. " Let them go," say some ; " we can do 
better, or as well, without them." " Compel them to stay at the 
point of the bayonet," say others ; " they have no right to withdraw." 
And thus it does look as if our national compact was to be broken up, 
the Union annihilated, the Constitution torn to pieces and trampled 
in the dust. Toward this the Republic has been manifestly drifting 
for these many years. Can the fearful catastrophe be averted? 

What is the cause or causes of the present threatening move- 
ments in the country ? I have told you what the immediate occasion 
of them is : the election of a President and Vice-President, both of 
them living in the North, and by a vote of the non-slaveholding 
states exclusively. But this is not the cause; such an event of itself 
is unimportant, and totally inadequate to account for the conduct 
of those statesmen who are precipitating the country upon Revolu- 
tion. I will tell you the causes which have been gradually working 
out this so deplorable a result. Causes it is yet possible to remove; 



8 CAUSES AND REMEDY OF 

but which, if not removed speedily, will plunge us in anarchy and 
ruin, by a law as inevitable as gravitation itself. 

Cause 1. Pride. — Probably no sin is more hateful to God than 
this. It is represented as that sin Avhich brought the Devil under 
condemnation. It was this that drew down the deluge of waters 
upon the whole race of man, and afterward provoked God to con- 
found their tongues and scatter them abroad over the earth. This 
was the iniquity of Sodom : " Pride, fullness of bread, and abund- 
ance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she 
strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." To Petra, the strong- 
hold of Edom, the prophet Obadiah is commanded to cry, " The 
pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the 
clefts of the rocks, Avhose habitation is high ; that saith in his heart, 
Who shall bring me down to the ground ?" It was in the very mo- 
ment when King Nebuchadnezzar, walking in the palace of the king- 
dom of Babylon, the report of whose splendor it has been left for 
our day to verify, " spake and said, Is not this great Babylon that 
I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power 
and for the honor of my majesty ;" it was " while the word was in 
the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, King 
Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken ; the kingdom is departed from 
thee." And that other Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots 
and abominations of the earth, was saying in her heart, " I sit a 
queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow," Avhen in one day 
her plagues came upon her, death, and mourning, and fire. 

But Avhy need I cite in particular instances of which the records 
of Providence are so full ; the plain and oft-reiterated declarations 
of God in his word are more than enough to satisfy the wise that 
everywhere and always Jehovah stands ready to resist and abase 
the proud. " Pride and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the fro- 
ward mouth, do I hate," saith the Lord. " Every one that is proud in 
heart is an abomination to the Lord;'' and therefore it is certain that 
" Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." 

This is a sin which has always flourished under precisely those 
circumstances in which men ought to be most humble and thankful. 
It is when God has blessed a nation in basket and store, increased 
their numbers and riches, raised them from feebleness to power, and 
from dependence to empire, that, forgetting the rock whence they 
were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence they were digged, they 
begin to say, " Who is the Lord that we should obey him !" " I did 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. 9 

know thee m the wiklerness," says Jeiioyah to Israel, " in the land 
of great drouth. According to their pasture so were they filled; 
they were filled, and their heart was exalted : therefore have they 
forgotten me." And a thousand years before Hosea had recorded 
this as history, Moses had spoken this prophetic song concerning 
that people : " He found him in a desert land, and in the waste 
howling wilderness ; he led him about ; he instructed him ; he kept 
him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, flut- 
tereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, 
beareth them on her wings ; so the Lord alone did lead him, and 
there was no strange God with him. 

" He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might 
eat the increase of the fields ; and he made him to suck honey out of 
the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock ; butter of kine, and milk of 
aheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and 
goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat ; and thou didst drink the 
pure blood of the grape. 

" But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked ; thou art waxen fat, thou 
art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness ; then he forsook God 
who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation." 

Is not our history the counterpart of all this ? Is not this a mir- 
ror in which we may look upon our own original — the feebleness of 
our beginnings ) the wanderings of our fathers in this so late a 
howling wilderness ; our exaltation, and our sin ? Let us hear, then, 
our doom, except we repent, " The sword without, and terror within, 
shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also 
with the man of gray hairs." 

Pride ; National pride ; State pride ; the pride of the earth-worm, 
MAN ! Pride, which says, " With our tongue will we prevail ; our 
lips are our own ; who is lord over us ?" — it is a germinal sin, pro- 
lific of every vice and crime. " These six things doth the Lord 
hate ; yea, seven are an abomination unto him : a proud look ; a 
lying tongue ; and hands that shed innocent blood ; an heart that 
deviseth wicked imaginations ; feet that be swift in running to mis- 
chief; a false witness that speaketh lies; and he that soweth dis- 
cord among his brethren." Here are the root and the branches of 
this Upas tree of Pride, which strikes deep its fibres in the soil of 
wealth, luxury, and ease, and drops its deadly dew upon the bosom 
of the very earth that gives it nourishment. This sin of the Devil, 
the sin of Sodom, Egypt, and Babylon, the sin of Tyre and of Rome, 
the sin of God's own chosen Israel, has become our sin already ; a 



10 CAUSES AND REMEDY OP 

republic scarce out of its swathing-bands ; a nation begotten of pov- 
erty and oppression, "whose birthday was but yesterday. Yes, I 
take you to record before that God in whom our fathers trusted, 
and by whose name they sware, "in truth, in judgment, and in right- 
eousness," that as a people we are become such as these : " Lovers 
of oui'selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient 
to parents, unthankful, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, 
fierce, dcspisers of those that are good, heady, high-minded, lovers 
of pleasures more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, 
but denying the power thereof." " We call the proud happy ; and 
they that work wickedness are set up, and they that tempt God are 
even delivered." 

Pride is then the first, great, crying sin against God of which, as 
a nation, we are guilty ; and this I put as the radical cause of all 
those evils of which we complain and wliich threaten our tranquillity. 

Cause 2. Oppression. — To be a slaveholder is not necessarily to 
be a tyrant; nor are the terms " freedom " a.nd " free soil," "'repub- 
licanism " and "justice " by any means convertible. It is not essen- 
tial to true liberty that a man should be endowed with the elective 
franchise ; nor are oppression and injustice only to be found upon 
the plantations of the South. To Northern legislators, judges, and 
jurors, to Northern manufacturers and money lenders, it may well 
be said by their Southern brethren, " And why beholdest thou the 
mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that 
is in thine own eye V * * * Thou hypocrite, first cast out the 
beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast 
out the mote out of thy brother's eye." And if I should confine 
my remarks to the colored race alone it would be no difficult matter 
to show that the laws of the free states, and the intense prejudice 
of the populace are more unreasonable and oppressive than are to 
be found in most of the slaveholding commonwealths. " I had 
rather live in Old Virginny than in Ohio, if I could only get back 
again," said an intelligent free black woman to me the other day. 
But the laws of Virginia, like the hiAvs of some of these North- 
western states, forbid the emigration of this helpless class of people 
into the State. In the South the negro is made to work when he is 
well : in the busy season, like the freemen of the North, to Avork 
hard and keep at it ; he is well fed, well clothed, well housed ; to a 
very great extent he is taught in the saving knowledge of the Gos- 
pel; when sick he is well nursed and well physicked. If he is lazy 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. H 

or idle he is sometimes well whipped; but not more frequently, 
perhaps, than Northern white men whip their wives, for which priv- 
ilege they pay five dollars. In New England, with the pseans of 
liberty sounding in his ears, the emancipated slave freezes and 
starves and sinks into imbecility; and the philanthropy of his 
boasted Northern friends, having exhausted itself in denunciation 
of his master, leaves him to the tender mercies of time and chance. 
In many respects I believe the black man in our midst is subjected 
to unjust disabilities, the removal of which neither imply nor require 
either social or civil equality. 

But it is not the degradation and oppression of this insignificant 
portion of our population — ^insignificant in point of numbers I mean 
— it is not their oppression that is calling down the judgments of 
God upon us, half so much as that galling oppression with which 
the pride, and covetousness, and luxury of society is crushing out 
the heart of the people. Crimination and recrimination are easy. 
Epithets of reproach, truthful, severe, irritating, may without much 
trouble be bandied between the one section and the other of this 
great republic of Christian freemen. The taunting finger may point 
to the slave-mart, the whipping- post, and the loose marriage-tie of 
the slave; and the taunt may be hurled back by an appeal to the 
pauperism, prostitution, homicides, and divorces of those who, in 
their philanthropic zeal, have forgotten the admonition of Jesus : 
"Judge not, that ye be not judged." 

Have done, I entreat you, with this vituperation of one another. 
Neither are so without fault as to be prepared to cast the first stone. 
Let this Divine counsel be received by all of every party and section 
throughout the land — my country as well as yours : •' Break ofi" your 
sins by righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the 
poor ;■' and so shall there be a healing of our past errors, and a res- 
toration of fraternal harmony, such as bound together our sires in 
field and counsel hall. 

Cause 3. Lawlessness. — It is one of the august titles claimed by 
.Jehovah that he is a Lawgiver. The universe feels the controlling 
power of those laws of which He is the Author. The majesty of 
law is recognized by angel and archangel, cherub and seraph ; by the 
" immortal star in its great course, and the little fire-fly in its insect 
flight." All sin is avofxta — lawlessness. No wonder, then, if rebel- 
lion should be accounted in the Divine judgment a heinous sin, and 
that spirit of false independence, which neither fears God nor 



12 CAUSES AND REMEDY OF 

regards man, be the unmistalvablc forerunner of the most direful 
calamities. 

And yet is it not undeniably true that now, for a long time, this 
demon spirit has stalked abroad over the land, not only unchecked, 
but almost unrebuked — nay, applauded and caressed? It -were an 
unnecessary tax upon your time to detain you witli a rehearsal of 
particular instances in -vvliich this spirit has exhibited itself in every 
state and city of the Union, as an active, dominant spirit. A press 
teeming with the most atrocious calumnies against the highest 
functionaries of the government ; inventing, misrepresenting, and 
detracting ; schooling the people in contempt of their Chief Magis- 
trate by the daily application to him of the epithets, " traitor," 
" dolt," " old renegade," " fool," " granny," and others yet more 
vile ; charging him with complicity in the most infamous deeds or 
purposes ; and heaping upon him and all his associates all manner 
of abuse, so that a simple-minded stranger must inevitably conclude 
that the powers that be in this country never are ordained of God, 
but always are of the Devil ; and, therefore, it is a meritorious thing 
to despise and defy them. A judiciary, the only safeguard against 
oppression by prince or people, trailing its robes in the dirt, to be 
trampled upon by the mob ; and if 07ie, more noble, be found, who 
will not forswear himself at the bidding of the threatening crowd, 
then he must be ostracised for his integrity. A pulpit teaching the 
infidel doctrine of a Higher law than God's word residing in the 
instincts and rational consciousness of man's own soul : or exaltinor 
to an equal dignity with the holy martyrs of Jesus, one who, like 
Barabbas, was guilty of sedition and murder ; or fanning the flames 
of civil war under the pretense of advancing human freedom, and 
then presenting Sharp's rifles to those whose passions they have 
aroused, to be used in the unholy strife. 

CovENANT-BREAKix\G is lawlessness of the worst kind. It is espe- 
cially so in a government like the one under >vhich we live : a con- 
stitutional, federative, and popular government. Covenant-breakers 
are pronounced in the word of God to be worthy of death; and 
covenant-breaking always draws after this penalty in some form or 
other. It is this death-bringing spirit that prompted to the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise. It is this spirit that works in the 
hearts of every agent and supporter of the Underground Railroad, 
through the operations of which servants are enticed and conveyed 
away from their rightful masters. It is the same spirit that violently 
obstructs the master in reclaiming his fugitive ; that refuses in good 
faith to execute the law of the land, and by indirection renders it 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. 13 

null and void. It is the same spirit that, setting more value upon 
a horse than a man or the authority of law, suffers a murderer to 
live, but hangs, without judge or jury, the horse-thief to the nearest 
tree. Which, entering into the women of some Northern town, 
breaks into a man's store, and breaks open his casks, and threatens, 
if he remonstrate, to break' his head ; and Avhich, taking possession 
of the men in some Southern village, sets them upon treating to a 
coat of tar and feathers some unfortunate peddler or lecturer, whose 
zeal has outrun his discretion. It is that spirit which has been so 
long fostered in the land by negligent parents and a licentious press, 
that boys laugh in the face of their mothers and fathers, and men 
laugh in the face of the laws, courts, and judges. 

In state affairs it is called nullification. It had its birth in 
the Northeast, somewhere about the year 1812, and has gradually 
spread over the land, until scarce a state or city that is not infected 
by it. And now its legitimate fruit seems about to be gathered in 
a harvest of lamentation, and woe, and death. For what is seces- 
sion but nullification in its consummation ? Must it, indeed, come 
to this ? God of our fathers, avert, in thy mercy, the fearful doom ! 

And yet it must and will come to this ere long, unless there is 
Christian humility and manhood, the magnanimity of noble minds, 
enough in these free states to say, " We have verily sinned in this 
thing, concerning our brethren,'' and the true spirit of that ancestry 
from whom we received this common inheritance, restore to the 
national covenant its original integrity and force. Repeal our nul- 
lifying laws ; cease our nullifying acts ; return the slave to his 
master, as we are bound to do by the Constitution ; and give up 
offenders to the states against whose laws they have offended; in 
short, act out the true meaning of the rule, " All things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them ;" 
and no longer demand or expect that any other principle of equity 
should be recognized in the South toward us than this, " With what 
judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged ; and with what measure 
ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 

If at once, and in that spirit by which, I am sure, every true 
friend of his country and the human race ought to be actuated, 
such a course of justice be taken, then my hope is that God would 
smile upon the endeavor to repair our breaches, and bring back 
the whole land to unity and peace, and, under a new reign of justice 
and fraternity, the ultimate happiness of all classes be attained in the 
highest degree of which man is capable in this sin-stricken world. 



14 CAUSES AND REMEDY OF 

Let this, the State of the beautiful river, eldest-born of these 
Northwestern sisters, daughter of A^irginia and Kentucky, take the 
lead in a movement so honoring to her wisdom and patriotism. 

But if another spirit shall rule in the hearts of the people and 
in the halls of legislation, then, indeed, will it be manifest that 
the cup of our iniquity is full ; that tlic unatoned blood of a thou- 
sand murdered innocents, in these Northern states, is to be avenged ; 
that our sins as a nation have reached iheir climax, and await their 
just punishment. Then will God have given us up to that infat- 
uation which is the premonition and fir.st-fruit of a terrible doom. 
For think not that these calamities are the mere outgrowth of 
personal ambition, or the devices of a few designing men, or the 
result of inevitable blind fate or cliancc. It is Jehovah, God of 
heaven and earth, who sits Judge among the nations. It is His 
voice that gives command to plant and build a kingdom, and it 
springs, as if by magic or miracle, or by slower degrees, to life, and 
greatness, and power; and it is his voice that pronounced against 
a nation for its evil deeds, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to 
destroy it. "Jehovah sitteth upon the flood; yea, Jehovah sitteth 
King forever." His almighty hand lifts the floodgates of human 
passion and sends the desolating scourge over a guilty land; and 
his nod alone can still the noise of the waves, the tumult of the 
people. He it is that teaches the hands of man to war, and his 
fingers to fight, so that one can chase a thousand, and two put ten 
thousand to flight ; and the swift fail in the race, and the battle be 
lost by the strong. 

It was well and cuttingly said by a king, in olden time, to a 
boasting foe, " Let not him that putteth on his armor boast himself 
as he that putteth it off"." It may be wise for these Northern 
States to heed the admonition. Such language as the followino-, 
with which our daily journals are filled, on this subject, sounds very 
defiant and confident : 

"We have jrot nearly as many people, and if you count activity and enter- 
prise, we arc actually alu-ad of Hontli Carolina in the scale of pro;;ress. 

"It is trne, South Carolina has, besides, [her -wliite citizens,] a slave popu- 
lation of 3S4,'JS4, or ahoiit 110,000 more than her free inhabitants. But this 
black element, so far from l)ein<j; a fortress of strcn.iith, is an clement of weak- 
ness. Jn a Rtru-<ile to maintain her independence of any foreign power, she 
has got to li^ht not only a foe in front, but an enemy in the rear. She' has 

fi<rr,t, in all probaliility, not only to repel invasion, but to suppress insurrection. 
er slaves would be found a iformidable incubus upon her success in the ardu- 
ous enterprise which she seems inclined to undertake, of setting up for herself 
as an indepondiMit nation. 

"Yet this little, greedy, f^'asconadini: State, with her handful of white men, 
and with no actual wrongs whatever to redress, raises her defiant crest ai^ainst 



IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. 15 

a nation of thirty millions, and swears she will secede from the Union. Why, 
you might as well talk of the town's poor seceding from the town, as one of 
the orators of New England said in a case somewhat similar." 

Perhaps so ; though it should seem that even the Queen City 
could not do without her town poor, in endeavoring to swell the 
number of her population. Possibly New England neither. 

Is it, then, upon such a basis of calculation as this we are to be 
persuaded to either press or accept of a bloody revolution? for 
bloody beyond all help it will be, sooner or later, if permitted to 
come. No doubt South Carolina has the right to secede from the 
Confederacy, if she thinks it necessary to preserve her liberties as 
a free commonwealth. It is not a right under' the Constitution, nor 
in it ; but before, above it, in defiance, if need be, of it. It is the 
inherent right of a people to redress insufferable wrongs by revolu- 
tion, if possible. But revolution begun is rebellion, and unsuccess- 
ful it is treason. Let each one, then, sit down and count the cost. 

It is the duty of the Executive to enforce the laws and Consti- 
tution of the country; and it would have been well for us to-day 
if, during the last twenty years, this had, in every case, been 
promptly, impartially, and faithfully done. But does any one dream 
that the General Government can compel a state whose population 
is united in the determination to separate from the Union, to stay 
in it against their will ? If so, it is high time, in my opinion, he 
should wake up from that dream. No one who is truly " wide awake " 
on this great question can soberly hold to such a delusive notion. 
No ; this sort of thing can't be done with any state, not even little 
Rhode Island itself. It could not be done if a single Southern 
state were to stand alone, which will never be found to be the case, 
should events test the matter by an actual withdrawal of South 
Carolina from the Union. Little Benjamin stood it out against all 
the other tribes, until her streams ran blood. But, at the end, was 
Benjamin subdued ? Annihilated, truly ; punished fearfully, and so 
was all Israel. But, instead of the exultant shouts and songs of 
a glorious and honorable victory, you hear the wailings of anguish 
and remorse. "And the people came to the house of God, and 
abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices and 
wept sore : And said, Jehovah, God of Israel, why is this come 
to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in 
Israel ?"* 

* The reader is requested to turn to and carefully peruse the last two chapters 
of the Book of Judges, 



16 CAUSES AND REMEDY OF IMPENDING NATIONAL CALAMITIES. . 

Yes, "wc may " cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." "We may 
possibly carry fire and sword into the homes of our brethren of the 
Palmetto State. Our hopes or our expectations, or wishes, or fears, 
as you choose to call them, may be better realized than Avere those 
of OUl England in the War of Independence, and the insurgent slave 
may open the gates for our admittance ; the massacres of St. Do- 
mingo and of Syria be re-enacted upon the cotton-fields of the South. 
Yes, all the infernal orgies of India be acted over again, under the 
eyes of those German and Irish adopted citizens, whose activity and 
enterprise have found so welcome a field in this truly great county 
of Hamilton ; but be it remembered, a county won from savage foe- 
men by the prowess and blood of these very Southern Christians 
whom we doom to such a fate. Federal troops and Northern adven- 
turers on the one hand, and infuriate slaves on the other, a South- 
ern State might possibly, if left alone, be encircled with a girdle of 
fire. Burnt up, devastated, blotted out from the political heavens, 
she might be ; but subdued, never, never ; not if all the North were 
heartily combined to accomplish the task ; and we are not united to 
do that thing. 

But I must not detain you longer upon this theme, important and 
urgent as it is. I leave it for your reflection and your prayers. 
Drawing my life-blood from Southern veins, it may be thought my 
sympathies are unduly with her noble, generous sons; but then, like 
your own, its mingled streams flow toward the Lakes and toward the 
Gulf. I believe that in this whole aff"air Northern men have been 
really the aggressors, and impartial history Avill so attest. But I 
belong to no party ; I have nothing to hope or to fear from any. 
My worldly interests, small though they be, are identified with this, 
the city of my birth. But I stand here to-day, as a minister of 
Christ, to call upon the people Avhom he has redeemed, both North 
and South, both black and white, both native and foreign, both bond 
and free, to pause and look back and look forward, and see how we 
have come to be what avo are, and whither our course is tending. 
And then, to look up to Him who has commanded to pray for all 
that are in authority, that Ave may lead quiet and peaceable lives 
in all godliness and honesty. 

From this sacred place, on this holy day, and from this spot, on 
Avhich, as a band of brothers, our pioneer fathers Avorshiped, let us 
be<^in that Avork Avhich shall be blessed of Heaven to the restoration 
of justice, peace, purity over the land, the only sure pledges of 
permanent and genuine prosperity. 



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